Social media for enhancing student engagement: The use of Facebook and blogs at a University of Technology

Ivala, Eunice; Gachago, Daniela

doi:10.20853/26-1-156

Cited by 52 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…It is these user‐driven initiatives enabled by the affordances of a social networking tool that has led to an increase in pedagogical explorations of using social media for educational purposes. South African educators have recently documented the use of Facebook in learning practices to promote authentic learning in discipline such as architecture and microbiology (Ng'ambi et al ., ), engineering or architectural technology (Ivala & Gachago, ).…”

Section: Chronological Analysis Of Selected Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Technology enhanced teaching and learning in South African higher education – A rearview of a 20 year journey

Ng’ambi¹,

Brown²,

Bozalek³

et al. 2016

Brit J Educational Tech

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In the last 20 years, the South African higher education has changed significantly, influenced by global trends national development goals and pressure from local educational imperatives, in the context of a digitally networked world. Shifts in technology enhanced pedagogical practices and in discourses around information and communication technologies (ICTs) have had varying degrees of influence in higher education. This paper takes a rearview of a 20‐year journey of technology enhanced learning in South African higher education. An analysis of literature view is presented chronologically in four phases: phase 1 (1996–2000), phase 2 (2001–05), phase 3 (2006–10) and phase 4 (2011–16). In phase 1 technology was used predominantly for drill and practice, computer‐aided instruction, with growing consciousness of the digital divide. In phase 2 institutions primarily focused on building ICT infrastructure, democratizing information, policy development and research; they sought to compare the effectiveness of teaching with or without technology. During phase 3 institutions began to include ICTs in their strategic directions, digital divide debates focused on epistemological access, and they also began to conduct research with a pedagogical agenda. In phase 4 mobile learning and social media came to the fore. The research agenda shifted from whether students would use technology to how to exploit what students already use to transform teaching and learning practices. The paper concludes that South Africa's higher education institutions have moved from being solely responsible for both their own relatively poor ICT infrastructure and education provision to cloud‐based ICT infrastructure with “unlimited” educational resources that are freely, openly and easily available within and beyond the institution. Although mobile and social media are more evident now than ever before, teaching and learning practice in South African higher education remains largely unchanged.

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Section: Chronological Analysis Of Selected Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Technology enhanced teaching and learning in South African higher education – A rearview of a 20 year journey

Ng’ambi¹,

Brown²,

Bozalek³

et al. 2016

Brit J Educational Tech

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“… The educational potential of social media, particularly its capacity to support collaborative and social constructivist modes of teaching, is well documented (Bozalek et al , ; Ivala & Gachago, ; Yang, Gamble & Tang, ). Utopian and dystopian views of social media in education in general and South African higher education in particular are widely shared. These polarised, deterministic views of social media have limited educators' holistic grasp of the context‐dependent and socially constructed nature of social media‐enhanced interaction. Employs technological ambivalence to provide insights into the multiple, complex, contested and contradictory effects of the utilisation of social media for teaching at university. Demonstrates the complex connection among educators' perceptions of social media, their media choices and effective use of such technologies for teaching. Highlights the different ways in which effective uses of social media by educators are embedded in these technologies' context of application. Contributes to the academic community by demonstrating some cases or scenarios where the academic use of technology is neither certain nor its effects readily predictable. Educators and learning designers need to consider the complex interplay of social conditions of social media use, barriers to effective use of such media and educators' teaching strategies to ensure meaningful adoption of social media. The removal of institutional and pedagogical constraints of social media use needs to be coupled with proven social media‐enhanced teaching models that synchronise with the situated context of its adoption. A holistic approach to social media adoption that captures educators' pedagogical intentions, teaching strategies and social practices as well as their socio‐technological orientations can gainfully impact their effective use of social media. …”

Section: Practitioner Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Wang, Woo, Quek, Yang and Liu's () study report that Facebook supports group‐based educator–student interaction, enhances educators' involvement as course administrators and engenders easy accessibility even after course completion. The appropriate integration of social media into teaching and learning curricula also potentially heightens educator‐enhanced student engagement in learning activities on and off campus (Ivala & Gachago, ). The major constraint of determinist thinking (both utopian and dystopian determinism), however, lies in its failure to sufficiently acknowledge human agency and control in technological innovation, appropriation and productive use of technologies.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They also reported that productive use of social media enhances student learning outcomes and satisfaction. Other studies affirm that using social media positively impacts student active learning, improves student task completion and heightens their performance and engagement (Ivala & Gachago, ; State of Victoria Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite the educational value of social media (Ivala & Gachago, ; Yang et al , ), the challenge for educators has been to reconcile the often‐polarised discourses about these technologies—the split between technological utopia and dystopia. While utopian views focus on the multiple educational opportunities that technology presents (Sahay, ), dystopian views regard technology as an inherently evil, dehumanizing force that will lead inevitably to the destruction of mankind (Surry, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Technological utopia, dystopia and ambivalence: Teaching with social media at aSouthAfrican university

Rambe¹,

Nel²

2014

Brit J Educational Tech

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The discourse of social media adoption in higher education has often been funnelled through utopian and dystopian perspectives, which are polarised but determinist theorisations of human engagement with educational technologies. Consequently, these determinist approaches have obscured a broadened grasp of the situated, socially constructed nature of human interaction with educational technologies and failed to explain ambivalent positions of technology adoption. To contest the innate determinism embodied in the aforementioned technological views, this paper draws on technological ambivalence to unravel the complex, multiple possibilities in pragmatic use of technology-including the double-bound relationship between human agency and educational technology. A phenomenological approach that draws on self-narratives of the use of social media by Computer Science and Informatics educators at a South African university is employed to unravel how their perceptions of social media shaped and informed their pragmatic instructional uses of these technologies. Findings suggest that the sharp contrasting experiences of collaborative engagement, enactment of decentralised power and democratic expression in social media coexist recursively with the disempowering, dependence-ridden and distractive effects of these technologies. This technological divergence is further compounded by ambivalent views that neither celebrate the unrealistic hopes of social media nor grossly protest against the debilitating effects of these technologies. This view foregrounds the social embeddedness of technology and its potentially multiple, contradictory effects. The implications of these findings include the need for educators to consider social conditions of technology use, the alignment of such conditions with innovative social media-enhanced pedagogical models and the use of proven models to demonstrate the educational potential of social media technologies.

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An examination of the relationship between Facebook groups attached to university courses and student engagement

Sheeran

Cummings

2018

High Educ

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Educators and researchers are increasingly interested in the benefits of using Facebook groups attached to university, largely around connectedness, engagement, and sense of belonging. However, thus far there have been no broad-scale investigations on the potential outcomes of course-attached Facebook groups. The current study used both within-and between-group analyses on 471 participants, in order to investigate whether courses with an attached official or unofficial Facebook group was related to increased student engagement (in the categories of relationships with faculty members, peer relationships, behaviouralengagement, cognitive-engagement, valuing, and a sense of belonging) and degree-identity compared to courses without Facebook groups. Results indicated that students reported interacting more with unofficial than official Facebook groups. Courses with an official Facebook group had significantly greater staff-connectedness compared to courses without an official Facebook group, while courses with either an official or unofficial Facebook group had a significantly higher peer relationships compared to courses without any Facebook group. Students with either an official or unofficial Facebook group had a significantly higher sense of belonging. Though students with either an official or unofficial Facebook group reported higher degree-identity, this may be primarily due to the unofficial, rather than official Facebook groups, this difference may only exist in the unofficial, but not the official Facebook groups.

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Social media for enhancing student engagement: The use of Facebook and blogs at a University of Technology

Cited by 52 publications

References 19 publications

Technology enhanced teaching and learning in South African higher education – A rearview of a 20 year journey

Technology enhanced teaching and learning in South African higher education – A rearview of a 20 year journey

Technological utopia, dystopia and ambivalence: Teaching with social media at aSouthAfrican university

An examination of the relationship between Facebook groups attached to university courses and student engagement

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